A remake of Wes Craven’s 1977 cult classic, The Hills Have Eyes tells the terrifying story of the a family that strays unwittingly into a government atomic testing zone.
Alexandre Aja directed the film, with Goei supervising the two-month shoot in Morocco. The film’s opening scene features three scientists conducting research amidst a desert sandstorm. The entire scene was scanned into the computer where 90 percent of the sandstorm was digitally created by the Rez-Illusion team. The billowing sand is actually white talcum powder that shot against a black background and composited to appear as dust particles. The layering of sand elements in the composites entailed substantial rotoscoping.
For several scenes focusing on the deformed face of the mutant Ruby character (pictured), the team developed a distortion technique to control the look and feel of the deformation. Three black dots were placed on the actor’s face and then motion tracked. Using these tracking points allowed artists to maintain a rigid underlying bone-structure, thereby avoiding the rubbery look.
Rez-Illusion also performed various wire removals, blood and fire enhancements, set extensions, reflection removals and created several muzzle flashes and 3D objects.
In addition to Goei, the Rez-Illusion team included VFX producer Laura LeFaivre; lead compositor Sookie Park; digital artists Chad Goei, Noll Linsangan, Wing Kwok and Tom Haney; and digital matte painter Laurent Ben-Mimoun.